


With You By My Side

by Wrappedbubble



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Go on Arthur finish Micah off, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pain, Slight spoliers but not in the right timeline, morston
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2019-11-04 09:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17896295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrappedbubble/pseuds/Wrappedbubble
Summary: What if the mountain top wasn't quite the end for Arthur?  What if he had a bit more fight left in him than he realised?  And what if, this last time, he lets someone else do the work and the rescuing."Hitting the ground wasn't the worst part. It had been painful for sure although it had only resulted in a quiet gasp as opposed to the coughing fit that he'd braced himself for. The worst part was knowing that he wasn't going to get back up. He couldn't do it. He missed John so much that it hurt more than his chest, more than his throat, more than his racked lungs. He felt like a child in his wanting for John so badly. He had tried to die like a man, he had tried to get up and live again no matter how short a time. And now he'd fallen short. He'd fallen."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok. So this is another new type of story for me. I'm picking up ideas and going with them for now. I don't want to leave draft work hanging in case it gets deleted. I would very much appreciate feedback. All my fics are always being worked on and having more than one at a time means writers block on one might be an opening on another. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think!

It had been the last shot that had been fired that night. Arthur had wrenched himself across the dry and unforgiving rock to curl his fingers around his last gun, having given everything else that he had carried to John before sending him away to find his wife and child. It wasn't his best gun and it hadn't been his best shot but it had still managed to tear away half of Micahs face and had sent him tumbling to the ground in a mess of spurting blood and brain matter, an unholy noise screeching from his mouth in his last sentient moment. In the silence that had followed, echoing around them, Arthur had finally lay back and let the air drag in and out of his throat like knives. He had fought through it and counted each breath and concentrated so hard on the counting that he did not notice Dutch at first, approaching him, creeping from behind a higher outcrop or rock. Dutch crouched down beside him, his forearms resting on his knees and a gun dangling limply from one hand.

"He was a rat Dutch," wheezed Arthur. "Don't matter much now but I want you to know. I tried with every bit of my strength..." he broke off to rasp in and out for a moment. Dutch stayed silent, swaying slightly in his crouch. "Had your back Dutch, always did have." He shut his eyes and let his breathing ease a little more, slowing it down as best he could. It was starting to move a little easier now that he was able to rest for a moment. He heard the click of Dutch's gun as he readied it and he opened his eyes at the feel of it pressed to his temple. Arthur turned his head slightly and looked up at Dutch, reaching his hand up to take hold of Dutch's free one, curling their fingers together and squeezing tightly before closing his eyes again and letting his hand fall back to his side out of Dutch's grasp. Arthur couldn't find any reason to care anymore whether he was killed up here by Dutch wih a bullet through the head, or whether he simply stayed here until he had gasped out his last aching breath. Either way was going to get him to the same inevitable destination and the peace that he found in that let his breathing ease up a little more again. He felt calm and dazed and just the right side of warm where he lay that he was drifting in and out of that special place between awake and asleep where everything is fine and everything makes sense and nothing troubles anyone... 

_John is pouting. At sixteen years old it doesn't suit him. And Arthur, ten years his senior tells him as much, his words muffled against his neckerchief held between his teeth while his hands are busy cleaning up the deep knife gash across John's palm. Arthur takes the neckerchief and ties it around John's hand._

_"Ain't hard, guttin' a fish kid," Arthur tells him._

_"Ain't a kid," John spits back._

_"Sure," Arthur says, letting go of John's hand._

_He never does get that neckerchief back._

... until all of a sudden it does and he jerks awake to find himself alone. No Dutch. Just Micahs lifeless body and a gentle sunrise for company. With a groan and more effort than he would have liked to have used, Arthur gets himself up off his back to rest on his elbows and then turns on to all fours. A cough rattles out and breaks through with blood and phlegm and all Arthur wants at that moment is to know that when he sent John off that he actually made it. In the growing light of a brand new day he forces himself to his feet, almost suffocating on the memories of the last few weeks, on the knowledge of too many people loved and lost, of too many people hated. Of how badly he could be caught between the two emotions to the point that it had tied him up in knots that he could only unravel at the point that he had believed death had finally come to claim him. It almost seemed cruel to have to wake to this new dawn. He tested his ability to walk, staggering a couple of steps and swaying slightly until he gets a rhythm going. One foot, then the other, repeat and keep repeating. Arthur let himself slide down slopes that were too steep or just too much hard work to navigate on foot, his palms tearing on the unforgiving rock beneath them. 

_John changed the dressing on his hand after a couple of days for a new one, a scrap of cloth from a shirt long past its best. He took Arthur's neckerchief to the nearest river and rinsed his blood from it, then stowed it in his satchel once it had dried._

Arthur moves at the only speed available to him and that is very slow indeed. He knows where Abigail and Jack were when he told John to go to them but he has no idea where they will have gone after that. And it is a very big world, one that seems to be chewing him up slow rather than spitting him out and being done with him. He has no food and has found only small amounts of water to drink during his descent from the mountain top. It is enough to survive on and goodness knows that there is hardly enough of him left that needs nourishing any more. Maybe just his soul and he has tried and tried to do that, filling up his last few weeks with as much divine repair as he can, never knowing if it will be enough. He can practically feel the heavens weighing his soul and finding it severly wanting. Time for him to change had run out. Would he have done anything differently had he known what would happen? Or was change always a step too far for him.

_He wakes with a start, hand reaching on ingrained instinct for which ever weapon is close enough to him before sleep clears fully and he recognises John's outline against the dark of the night outside his tent._

_"Fuck sake John," Arthur mumbles. "You tryin' to get killed or somethin'?"_

_John pushes himself further into the tent, into Arthurs space, holding his hand out. "Is it infected?" he asks._

_"Infected? You've had that cut for less than eight hours, how should I know if it's infected yet, ain't got no crystal ball." Broken sleep made him harsh and quick with his answer. John sniffed, or was it a sniffle? Arthur rand a hand across his face, squeezing at his eyes and sighing._

_"Get here," he says, shifting back on his cot and dragging John down in front of him. "You ain't gonna lose your hand."_

_"Stings," John said, muffled into the arm he had pillowed under his head._

_"I know," Arthur said._

After taking up one entire day resting on in the shade at the foot of the mountain, Arthur felt as ready as he was going to be to try to find John and his family. He had lay down next to a stream and coughed and drank water and coughed some more. He had scrabbled around for whatever herbs and edible roots that he could find, coming up with just enough to carry on sustaining him. Without a horse to carry him he may as well have stayed up on that mountain, although the thought of dying next to Micah made him want to heave. Anything would be a better end than that. He had no lasso and even he had he knew that no longer possessed the strength to use it, let alone break a horse and ride it bareback to who knew where. The only option open to him was stealing one. The knowledge pushed him up and away from his resting spot and towards worn wagon tracks ground into the dirt of a path. Either direction, it didn't matter because one way or another horses and people were passing both ways through here and whichever way he followed it would bring him to wherever they were soon enough. Then it was only a case of waiting for nightfall and taking what wasn't his to take. Another mark against his soul he supposed. And so he followed the path at a small distance, giving him the ability to hide if he needed to. He followed and followed and followed until he came to a fork in the road and a small path breaking away from it to what looked like a homestead. It was small, unguarded, clearly not owned by well off folk and they were about to become one horse less well off. But Arthur was relieved at least to see that not well off equated with not well protected. Everything was open, nothing was tied down or locked up. So he waited. He had become acustomed to waiting and taking his time over the last four or so days and he was grateful to have the time to hide away at a greater distance, one eye on the homestead, another on the sky waiting for night to come and claim day, and a cough that he dared not release into the quiet.

_When John had been gifted his own horse by Dutch it was Arthur he had turned to to learn how to ride. Watching Arthur on a horse was like watching poetry fly on the wind. He was meant to be there, one arm easily at his side, his knees guiding the animal, his words quick and quiet and loving. John was struck suddenly by a thought. If he could have been anything else in the world it would be Arthur's horse. To have his kind words, his calming voice directed at him, never a cross word, never any anger. To be the thing that Arthur came to with only ever peace and calm as his intentions. And so it was that when John learned to ride, he rode almost as well as Arthur. He let one arm hang by his side, let his knees do the talking almost as well as his voice._

Darkness fell, finally, blessedly. Arthur watched as the owner of the house carried a lamp out to see to feed the horse, to lead it to water, to rub it down and ready it for tomorrows working day. He waited until all of the lamps had gone out in the house and then he waited some more until he was sure that no one could possibly be awake anymore. He wheezed out a moments worth of coughing into the crook of his elbow, tying to keep the noise as quiet as he could before he trusted himself to get up close to the horse. As he moved he began whispering the gentle sweet nothings that he always used to calm horses, one arm extended out to let her get a sniff at him as he approached. With no satchel he had no bribe for her but she seems contend to stay still at his approach and began to lip at his fingers softly in search of a treat when he reached her. "Ain't got nothin' for you here girl, but you just wait, John'll have something for you if you can get me there. " She huffed a big breath out into his hair as he leaned against her strong neck. "I'll bring you home girl when this is all done. Just help me get to mine first." Arthur murmured to her as he heaved himself up and over her back, only his words, his wits, his knees and his hand fisted in her mane to guide her. "Get me to John girl. Get me back. " 

_"You're back." Dutch said. John had heard Arthur arrive back at camp and had watched through a gap in the fabric of his tent as he had strode straight to Dutch's tent, straining to hear them._

_"Yeah I'm back, somehow," said Arthur. John watched him drop something on Dutch's table. "It was a piss poor take on a piss poor load of information. Who's idea was this? "_

_"Pardon me?" Dutch asked, so low John almost missed it._

_"I said who's idea was this because I didn't think i was getting back here."_

_"If you must know Arthur it was Micah and..."_

_"I should have known. "_

_"AND EVERY DECISION GOES THROUGH ME, " roared Dutch. Everyone in camp must be listening now along with John. Arthur looked like he'd been slapped and couldn't decide between slapping back in anger or crying in defeat. Dutch reached around him and pulled on the ties that kept his tent open, and John took the chance to sneak closer, to hear what he could no longer see._

_"Arthur, son," said Dutch. John heard feet shuffling. "No no no, don't do that, just come here." More shuffling. "I love you son, but you have got to trust me, you need to have faith in me. Don't let me down Arthur. You won't do that to me will you son? "_

_Arthur's assurances that he would not let Dutch down were muffled, John couldn't make them out fully. He listened to more shuffling and scuffing. To something that sounded like metal jingling quietly until Arthur broke the sounds with words._

_"I gotta go Dutch," he said. "Need some sleep, get over this fuck up."_

_"You should stay here tonight," said Dutch, his voice the muffled one this time._

_"I don't think I should,"_

_"Oh you don't think you should do you?"_

_There was a pause just long enough to allow John to duck out of sight at the side of the tent._

_"No," said Arthur as he left the tent. "I don't think i should."_


	2. Chapter 2

"You are not going out there John Marston," Abigail said, barring the door with her body, squeezing her arms around herself tightly. 

"I can't...," he stumbled over what to say next. He couldn't what exactly?

"You can't what John?" Abigail said. "Can't stay here with your family? Can't stay put without Arthur making you?" She cut off abruptly, drawing in a rapid breath, a sob at the end of it. It was too much. It was enough that she was this upset but she felt several times worse flinging it at John no more than two weeks after everything had crashed down around them. "It's been two weeks John. Ain't gonna be anything out there 'cept lawmen and Pinkertons. I am begging you please _please_ don't leave us for a body and a memory."

The door to the opposite side of the room opened, making them both jump. They turned as one, expecting Jack, expecting to make up for him hearing yet another argument. They were met instead by Sadie.

"Before you ask," she said, closing the door, "I heard everything so don't go being all embarrassed. Look I'm going to head out to get some supplies. Don't reckon anyone'll find you here and ain't like you're not well guarded." She looked to John to mark the point. "Arthur told me that folk like him and me were more ghosts than people and he was right. And it means I'm as good as invisible. So you want it checked out then I'll check it out but John," Sadie paused. "I think we all know what I'll find."

Sadie crossed the room quickly, covering Abigails forearm with her hand and squeezing, a tight smile on her lips. She had time for Abigail. She had time for Jack. She still couldn't be sure what she thought of John. Circumstances had made demons out of them all to one degree or another and she herself had been burning hot and furious since she'd joined the gang. But that was recent history. All she could judge on was what she saw and she spoke as she found. Abigail had the fortitude of ten John Marston's. Loss was never easy, she had as much cause to know that as anyone in this room, but at least she'd met hers head on. John just seemed stupified by the whole thing. Without a backwards glance she stepped around Abigail and through the door, leaving Abigail presumably still guarding it once it shut behind her. 

Their mounts had been left saddled, the empty space of Old Boy a painful reminder, to save precious time in an emergency, although Sadie was as certain as she could be that they had succeeded in lying low. In doing what Dutch had failed to manage in the entire time that she had known him. Always tempted out by greed, by desire. It wasn't a temptation that she was familiar with. All she had wanted was the life that she envisaged with Jake Adler but that had gone up in smoke. Literally. Her possessions, her love, her ability to feel. All gone. The last person that she truly cared about had been Arthur. She had respected him, had watched him turn his life entirely on its head in the space of a few weeks to achieve something good. All she felt that she had been doing was achieving something bad _because _her life had been turned on its head. His last reckless dive into the breach to give John what he couldn't have himself had hurt her more than she cared to think. On such short acquaintance, what right did she have to take John's and Abigail's grief and make it her own.__

She shook her head to clear it, thoughts were no good at the moment. Action was what would work, that much she knew. Arthur had achieved both in the end, both thought and action but for now she would do what she had promised and she would get John and Abigail and Jack out. But they were going nowhere without food and Jack was only small. He needed more than just the basics. He needed to understand but at his age that was impossible so she settled instead for a toy or a book or something that would occupy him while they got somewhere more permanent. She climed awkwardly up on her horse having changed her usual attire of pants and a shirt for a skirt and a blouse. Harder to run in, harder to fight in. Easier to blend in. It was a short enough ride into Saint Denis, as uncomfortable as that made her. She had made her home somewhere far away, somewhere where the cold could bite as harsh as any wolf, somewhere far from people. The mess that that had landed in brought her fully into the path of civilisation and into nothing like comfort. Nothing was good. Neither was the better of two evils. Maybe they should skirt the shoreline west before heading up north. Maybe they should go back to her old ranch and her old life and wear the ruins of her previous life like costumes until they could believe the act themselves.

"God, that's enough!" she said out loud to herself, clicking and nudging her horse forward. "Just get the damned supplies lady." She moved at an easy looking pace, not hurrying, nodding or answering to random greetings of folk she met on the way into town. Entering Saint Denis brought with it lawmen and painful reminders. She didn't waste time in the richer parts of town, heading instead for back alley shops and stalls, picking up dried goods and medicines, books and a small pull along cart for Jack. Never having had children she was unfamiliar with what would be good for him to play with but it was better than nothing she figured. Looking around with tired and bored eyes she could feel it welling up inside her. A barely concealed anger against everything she could see around her. Against the people who would never know what sort of life she was leading, against all of the people who thought outlaws were nothing but scum. She railed inside against their put on accents and their stupid clothes and their vaccuous pointless lives and she despised how easily things like food and water and light and _godamned love_ came to them.

It was enough. This time it was enough. The losses were too numerous to count, too much to account for. A life being built had been burned to the ground and what had sprung up in its place was no phoenix. It was hatred and confusion and nothing better than what she had had if she had just been left to it with nothing more than Jake's body and a ranch that she couldn't possibly run on her own. She turned her horse and pulled away as fast as she dared through the overly crowded and stinking city streets, bearing north, up and away fron the heat and out past mud and flies and nothing that she wanted any part of whatsoever. She carried on, letting tears well in her eyes, letting them track down her cheeks as she pulled off the main tracks once alligators were no longer a threat, letting herself be carried further away from Lemoyne and up into New Hanover. She kicked and pitched up into a gallop, streaking across open country and leeting the wind carry her shouts of rage away, knowing that no one here was going to hear them anyway. It was only when her voice cracked on itself that she stopped. Jake had always found joy in mimicking her, her husky voice, the way she could roll it over words like they were bedrock. Tired by memories and crying and shouting she let herself slide to the ground, messily and awkwardly, holding to the saddle for a moment to steady her body upright. No more tears now, she felt empty and used up and spat back out as she walked away to sit on the floor and look around at her surroundings. If she had to guess she would assume that she was somewhere a few miles away from the western banks of the Kamassa river. As good a place as any to lose yourself for a day or so. She turned to look back at her horse, unhitched and eating grass. 

"Walk with me," she said, standing and brushing grass and dirt from her skirt. "We're going to get them out then you and me are going so far away that no one will ever find us. Don't need no one else. Other people only mean more goodbyes." Taking hold of the reins she started walking, taking some small measure of comfort in the day that was passing by fast enough to turn to late afternoon and in her horse who was a steady presence in a way that other people could never be. Up in the distance the forests edge in Ambarino came into view, making her realise how far she had run and how long it would take to get back to Copperhead Landing where she had left the only people that she knew anymore. "They'll just have to make do for a night I reckon," she said out loud. "John's going to have to be the man of the house this time." She knew that what she was saying was cruel, she knew that he was dealing with a lot right now. And she knew that without Arthur he was lost, no compass to follow, no light to guide him past the rocks hidden below the surface. He was standing on his own two feet with a family and he was going to have to sink or swim this time. For Abigail and Jack's sakes she hoped that he would make a good job of it. She carried on leading the way, heading for the trees. With no plans to be out this far she had nothing to build a fire with so shelter was going to have to come from nature and food would have to be some of the supplies that she had bought that morning. Darkness was creeping across the sky faster than she had realised, forcing her back up into the saddle to cover the open space faster than she could walk.

Breaking through the tree line gave the diminishing day a false night, faster thanks to the cover of leaves above her head. She let the horse guide her a little deeper into the forest until it closed up behind her, swallowing her whole so that she felt comfrotable enough to stop for the night. The sounds of a forest waking at night picked up from all around, turning it into a different beast to the one that it was in the day. But a noise that seemed wrong pricked at the edge of her consciousness until it made itself known and she couldn't ignore it anymore. She peered into the darkness, reaching up and under her skirt for the pistol that she had strapped up to her leg for emergencies, which this might well turn out to be. She didn't call out, didn't want to draw attention to herself as she whispered a hush to her horse, then picked her way over branches trying to be as quiet as she could. A movement, a suggestion of something between the trees caught her attention so she moved towards it, losing sight of it from time to time in the diminishing light and the thickness of the forest. It was the thud and the soft moan, almost silent in its weakness that made her pick up her pace, something in it that had her rushing forward before she could place it in her mind, before it all fell into place that somehow the universe had seen fit to place her just here, just now when it was needed the most. She knew it, recognised it, acknowledged it just as the word left her mouth, just as she dropped to her knees in a rush, just as she reached her hands out to grasp forwards. 

"Arthur!"


	3. Chapter 3

Arthur hunched over his stolen horse, just about staying on its back but not upright. He had no strength for that, only enough to hold on and let it carry him South. He couldn't recall when he had last eaten. He had no idea how long he had been riding. He didn't remember when water had last passed his lips but it must have done if he was still alive. Against all odds he was somehow still alive. 

_John recalled the day he graduated from being "kid" clear as day. It had turned a bad day into a good one. Into one where Arthur thought he was more than just a child. Into one that turned his existence into one of possibilities. Possibilities that all revolved around Arthur, as if he was John's very centre of gravity. A bullet graze and more blood than it should have produced and suddenly he was held up against Arthur's chest. He was laid down by Arthur's arms. He was washed clean by Arthur's ministrations. He was left to sleep it off while a shaking Arthur was convinced into Dutch's tent by honeyed words of comfort. John saw him go but couldn't stay awake any longer. The good day took on a sour note._

If he stopped to get off this horse now, Arthur knew that he didn't possess the strength to get back on. It was unthinkable that he should just lie down and die on the outskirts of a forest when he had battled every fibre of his sickened existence to get down from that mountain so that he could reach John. He'd expected to die there and so, when it was that he awoke, John was what he wanted to see. The further he rode away from the mountain, the more he realised he needed to tell him. The more he realised that he was a lot more selfish than he thought because he didn't want to just agree to being John's brother in what they thought were his final moments. What he really wanted was to tell him that he hated the thought of leaving him. That he wasn't so strong as all that. That he was scared and that he wanted John to stay instead of forcing him away.

_"You ain't running a fever still," Arthur rocked back on his heels next to John, satisfied by his temperature._

_"What was you doing in Dutch's tent? " John asked him, voice a little dry and croaky. He flinched inside. He sounded like a kid. Didn't want to be kid again._

_" What'chu mean boy?" That was okay. That wasn't kid._

_"The night I got back. Dutch talked you into his tent."_

_"And? What, you wanted me to stay and hold your hand all night? " Yes._

_"No," a nerve hit, words out that can never be put back in._

He made the tree line just after darkness fell, still miraculously dry with no rain on the horizon. Arthur was dreading rain. That, he was certain, was going to kill him the second it started falling. He had no strength in him to resist it and being damp and cold right now would literally be the death of him. His stomach growled at him, his throat burned from illness and from stomach acid from being so hungry. It forced a hiccup upon him which in turn forced a fit of coughing and wheezing which racked him and wrung him out where he clung grimly to the horses mane. Falling was unthinkable. It was unthinkable. It was... It was happening. The words in his head as he tumbled to the ground _"You can't fight gravity."_

_John pushed up from the ground in the shade of a tree. He was a little distance out from camp and scowling in the general direction of the prostitute that Uncle had brought in. Pretty enough but constantly looking to sell her wares. Making eyes at the men, the young ones at least. Making eyes at Arthur. Abigail and Arthur. Too many 'A's he thought. Sounded dumb. And it was thoughts like these that made him feel less like "boy" and more like "kid" again. From behind him a hand reached around to his lips, placing a lit cigarette between them. Another hand curled it's fingers in the back of his belt and tugged him a few inches backwards. He melted up against Arthur's chest._

Hitting the ground wasn't the worst part. It had been painful for sure although it had only resulted in a quiet gasp as opposed to the coughing fit that he'd braced himself for. The worst part was knowing that he wasn't going to get back up. He couldn't do it. He missed John so much that it hurt more than his chest, more than his throat, more than his racked lungs. He felt like a child in his wanting for John so badly. He had tried to die like a man, he had tried to get up and live again no matter how short a time. And now he'd fallen short. He'd fallen.

_"Are you going to sleep with her?" John asked Arthur, a few months after Abigail had joined them. He hated to sound petty. He hated to ruin this hunting trip. But he was desperate to know, and growing up wasn't always something that he was in a hurry to do._

_"With who?" Arthur asked behind him. John, sitting between Arthur's legs with his head resting back on his chest, craned his neck to look back at Arthur._

_"With Abigail."_

_"No," said Arthur, easy as you like. "Are you?"_

_"No."_

_Arthur smiled and brushed John's hair back away from his head, placing a kiss where it had been._

_"You can if you want to John," he murmured on to his skin. "Have yourself a wife and children."_

_"What would I want with children?"_

_"A chance to do better than our daddy's did for us? 'Cause me and you sure as shit ain't gonna produce a kid."_

_"Jesus Arthur, even Copper would have done a better job at being a father than I ever could." John didn't like the conversation anymore than when it he had started it. And he hated having no one to blame but himself._

_"I loved that dog," said Arthur. "But he was a fool if ever I saw one. Imagine it! Seven more little Coppers!" He laughed at the idea then all but dragged John up his body, twisting him to face him on his lap. "I love you but don't you ever let me hold you back John."_

_John closed the distance, met his mouth with Arthur's. Because how could he explain that Arthur would never, could never hold him back. He was what pushed him forward._

His name, he was sure, was being called. No one had called his name up on that mountain. Maybe this was finally it then and his name was being called out to step forward and account for his life. It made him want to be sick but damn it all if he wasn't going to face it like a man. 

"Who are you?" he whispered at the voice. If he was going some place bad then he wanted to know his enemy. 

"Jesus Arthur, look at you," he was told. Which seemed damned unfair given what he'd been through. He wheezed in and couldn't answer, couldn't give his account, couldn't try to explain himself. He was panicking and his lungs were squeezing and rattling and he could taste blood. He needed to tell the voice that he had tried. He needed to tell it to leave John alone. He arched weakly up against the spike of pain down his very core to find that the voice had a hand and that hand was pushing him down. Down.


	4. Chapter 4

It didn't look good. In fact it looked pretty literally like death warmed up. How the hell he'd got up on that horse that she didn't recognise, with no saddle and no reins, how the hell he'd got this far South. It was too much to consider. In the dark he looked like the ghost that he had claimed himself to be, skin too pale and eyes too bloodshot. It ached to look at him with his cracked lips and cracked knuckles and cracked voice asking her who she was. Asking because he really didn't seem to know, didn't seem to recognise her voice at all. 

"It's me," she said. "It's Sadie." He didn't seem to notice that she'd spoken, his brow furrowed and features twisting. She could hear the awful discomfort in his breathing, the nervous stop- start of it and how it caught and made him bend himself up and away from the ground at his back. Reaching out to him she place a hand on his chest, palm flattened and used a little pressure to try to ease him back down. It didn't take much, he went easily. 

"Arthur I'll get you to John," she told him, standing up, mind turning over on how exactly she was going to get him back across the miles that she'd covered with only one saddle between them and a horse she didn't know. Illness had ravaged him but she wasn't fool enough to imagine that she could lift him on to either of their mounts.

"Look, I don't know how you managed to get yourself here but we're a long way from Copperhead so I gotta figure this out. But if you _can_ still move, just please don't. " she glanced around looking for anything that might be useful. "I'll work something out okay?" He didn't answer her, not a groan, not a word. Nothing. She knelt close to him to check that there was still a rise and fall to his chest. 

Satisfied that she'd seen movement she went and checked the saddle bags on her horse. She had rope in there. It would do for something she supposed, once she had an idea what that something was exactly. All around her were leaves and twigs but a few larger branches caught her attention. A quick glance at Arthur satisfied her that he himself wasn't moving but that he still appeared to be breathing, just. That would do. She carried and kicked and rolled branches together, laid out one next to the other and probably not long enough but she didn't have time. Jake always used to tell her that if wishes were horses then everyone would ride. Well, she had horses and no way to use them both and she would have given her back teeth for a wish. But in place of useful horses and plentiful wishes she bound the branches together with the rope, using a foot as leverage to pull the rope tight. The rope was getting shorter quickly. Short enough that Arthur was going to have a rough ride on the makeshift pallet but it wasn't to be helped. She pushed it to him, feet digging into the ground and bent over using her weight to shove it to him, to bring it close enough that she could take hold of one of his shirt sleeves and one of his pant legs and drag him on to it. Feet braced up against the far side of the pallet she used it to counter ther pull that she had on him, letting go once he was on it and falling flat on her back in the dirt.

"Oh God, don't be dead yet," she whispered out loud. She crawled back across to him where he lay, brushing her hand across his forehead. Heat was good, he was burning up but that was better than stone cold because it meant that his blood was still being pushed around, it meant that he was still with her. It meant that she had a shot at getting him back to John like she had told him she would. "Don't you die Arthur. Not yet. You gotta see John. He ain't doin' so well without you, ya old fool." She sniffed and blinked back the tears. She threw the fool insult at him because it felt easier than watching another good man go, another man who had done everything that he could to protect what he loved. And he had oceans of love in him, she knew it, just knew it. Rightly or wrongly over his past it had clearly been directed in some odd ways but by God it was love and that was worth fighting him back to John for. 

She took up what was left of the rope and dragged herself up, calling her horse to her and tying it off on the first part of the saddle that looked like it would take the strain and not pull it too tight that it would snap, then took down the bedroll that was always kept on the back of the saddle. Like a shroud she covered Arthur, leaving the material tented over his face so as not to make him feel smothered. As much as she hated to admit it she knew that this was her one shot. That if this didn't work she had no strength to do more than she had and she would have to sit with Arthur until he died and then leave him where he was. She had no means for a burial upon her person and no energy to carry one out. Everything about her had been used and spent with Jake getting killed, with going after the O'Driscolls on his behalf, with the gang, with it falling to pieces and her promise to get John and his family out. She never felt more like that ghost than she did right now. Practically see through and done in. If this failed. If this failed it was over.

Gracelessly she pulled up into the saddle and clicked her tongue to get a gentle walk going, turning to look at Arthur. It was an uncomfortable looking ride. Each step that the horse took made the makeshift pallet rise a but less than foot or so off the ground before dropping back down only to rise up again as they carried on walking. Gritting her teeth she made herself look away and tried to concentrate solely on finding the smoothest way for them to go. She peered into the darkness to check for rocks or fallen trees. She strained to listen for snakes or anything else that might spook the horse and make it bolt. Because that would be the end of it too. So many ways that this could go wrong. So many ways that this trip could kill Arthur faster than it was already going to. 

Breaking out of the forest meant the loss of cover. The thought of killing someone who happened to have a wagon crossed her mind but she dismissed it quickly. Enough people had died at her hand, at the gangs hands. It was done and it needed to stay that way. Roads were utterly out of the question. The railway line seemed like her best bet. Skirt along the edge of it where normally only wildlife strayed. People didn't often walk along next to a railway line. Anyone nosey enough to want to know more could always be told about her dear dead brother on his pallet of branches, sent to meet his maker by way of highly contagious cholera. Should be enough to get rid of anyone so long as Arthur didn't start coughing. And if the rumours she'd heard over the last couple of weeks were true then there might not be many trains passing by either, them being subject to searches at stations, looking for Van Der Lindes. 

The hours passed. Sadie stopped every now and then to try to get Arthur to drink some water before covering him back up and carrying on. She kept going as daylight clawed it's way over the horizon and Arthur lived into another day. It seemed almost impossible. It seemed fully impossible. She had the horse gently pick it's way down a slope and beneath the wooden supports of a railway bridge, a dried out old river bed beneath it. It was the best shelter that she could find for them to wait it out until evening time. 

"You awake Arthur?" she asked, pulling back the bed roll that was covering him still. He had his eyes shut but he was breathing. She didn't know if it sounded a little easier because he'd been able to rest or if she just wanted it to sound easier. He mumbled something to her. She leaned closer in. "I didn't catch that. Can you say it again?" 

"... done bad things..." he said quietly. 

"Now's not the time Arthur, don't you worry about what you done."

"... judge me...I can take... whatever it is."

"I ain't judging you Arthur, no ones judging you." At last he opened his eyes, taking near on a full minute to focus well enough on her that he looked like he actually knew who she was. 

"Mrs Adler?"

"The very same," she said to him, checking his forehead with her hand. Still hot. Still just as hot as before. She couldn't help it but it made her feel angry. He was going to die anyway, of course he was but against all of the loss she known, she had thought that maybe just this once the universe could over look this tragedy that was unfolding.

"Was ready to... atone," he said, closing his eyes. 

"Reckon you done enough of that just lately. Sorry about the ride, it's bumpy I know."

"... want..." he muttered. 

"Want what Arthur?" she leaned in as close as she dared. Watched him slowly draw a breath in, trying not to irritate his throat, his lungs. 

"John."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can anyone tell me why this fic won't show up under the Arthur Morgan tag? I'm sure I've tagged correctly but if I search just for Arthur Morgan it's not there. Mystery to me!

_There were things in this world that he didn't understand. He was told that a lot and it was an important sounding sentence which was why he liked the sound of it even if he didn't like what it meant. And he didn't like being "still only fourteen". And he definitely didn't like the way that Arthur had come back to camp that afternoon and ignored him and crossed straight to Bessie and pressed his face to her shoulder and the way that Arthur's shoulders were shaking. He watched Bessie raise a hand slowly to her mouth, wide eyed and looking for Hosea._

_Hosea and Dutch were in Dutch's tent. He knew that because they'd said that important sounding sentence to him not half hour before which is why he was sitting out of ear shot under a tree and watching them instead. They both came out to Bessie's calling them. And Dutch took charge which made John feel relieved because Dutch knew what he was doing. Dutch took Arthur away and into his tent, closing it around them both. Hosea grasped on to Bessie while she cried and shook her head and pressed herself to him like she could disappear._

"John," Arthur whispered. He didn't know if he'd said it once or if he'd said it one hundred times. It was the loudest word in his head, and if he thought about it, it always had been. Sadie was somehow with him and God keep her, she was taking him to see John. 

John. 

"Days almost done," she said to him. He kept his eyes shut. Everything seemed too bright, even the oncoming evening and he wanted to save his strength for the trip back. He wanted his eyes to see John next, to burn his image in to them so that he could take it with him wherever divinity saw fit to place him.

"I'm gonna cover you back up now," she lifted the bed roll, holding it a little way off his face. "Sorry."

"Ain't nothin'..." he took a shallow breath in. "Sorry 'bout." The fabric closed him in, shroud-heavy. 

_Two days after Arthur left camp John gathered his courage and asked Dutch what he needed to know._

_"Where's Arthur?" Dutch looked at him for a long moment before answering._

_"There's times in a man's life son when he needs to be alone. Arthur's got some thinking he needs to do."_

_"What thinking?" Dutch looked at him again, and John thought he looked angry, just for the smallest of moments._

_"Arthur needs to do what Arthur needs to do." Which didn't answer anything at all in John's opinion. Dutch had a look about him that John didn't like. As though he had tried to steal something off of Dutch when all he wanted was to know where Arthur had gone. Couldn't he think about things in camp? And for the rest of that week, the rebel thought was in John's head. Arthur needs to do what Dutch needs him to do._

The up and down motion that the horse's gait caused was starting to become soothing rather than uncomfortable. Arthur started to count backwards from one hundred and then up again from zero in case the motion rocked him to sleep, rocked him to death. Hosea had told him once about how English kings could sentence someone to death and have them dragged to the gallows on a wooden hurdle because they weren't deemed worthy of placing their feet on the ground. Traitors. He and John, traitors to Dutch and this was his punishment. John's feet would have to walk the earth without him. 

_It had taken near on a year and a half for Arthur to start seeming like himself again. John hated those long months of Arthur being cold, unreachable. Of just going through the motions and doing whatever Dutch said. John thought that it was as if he'd forgotten he had a brain of his own. He'd told John often enough to use his brain but he didn't seem to be using his. It reminded John of a puppet show he'd seen years and years ago. Arthur was out of camp then back in Dutch's tent. And so it went on, Dutch pulling the strings._

The motion had slowed and stopped and Arthur was beyond grateful because between that and the counting he was finding that almost everything was capable of sending him over into the abyss of sleep and oblivion. He'd readied himself for it once and woken to a new day. Now he had readied himself to cling to life for a little longer and he didn't think that he could take the sting of bitterness that losing the chance to see John again would bring. If he'd ever needed to understand the saying 'so near yet so far' then the last few weeks had more than brought it home to him. 

The bed roll was lifted from his face and he felt Sadie checking his forehead again. He had sweated under it but the chill that touched his face at the loss of the cover made him shiver instantly. It hurt. Everything hurt. The shaking just made it worse. 

"Please," he groaned. Please cover me up, please let me out, please take me to John, please let me die, please don't let me die. 

"Okay Arthur," she whispered. "I can't do much more so I gotta go get John and Abigail." 

She left him where he lay on his pallet, his hurdle. And she left his face uncovered. Without a doubt it felt less like being the living dead but the colder air hurt so much more to breathe in. It tightened in his chest and made him cough. He couldn't hold it back. 

_There was a moment when it all changed. A town hove into view along the horizons edge and brought with it the promise of a saloon and a bath. He liked to keep his hair long, but as soon as he'd turned sixteen it had started needing washing every day, an impossibility with the life he lived. By the time he was nineteen it hadn't gotten any better._

_Arthur was waiting for him when he left the hotel, a full bottle of whiskey in one hand and a smile on his face. John got that feeling again deep down at the bottom of his stomach. The pleasurable twist of it. He never wanted it to go away._

_It stayed with him as they rode out of town._

_It grew to a smouldering heat as the two of them pitched tents when night fell too far from camp._

_It stoked up to lick flames at him when, after only a quarter of the bottle was drunk, Arthur pulled John's hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to his palm._

_It burnt him at the stake all through that night._

He felt almost empty. Any water that Sadie had managed to get into him had come out when he had coughed himself sick. He'd managed to turn his head to the side to throw up mostly on the ground. He was glad for the dark, glad to not have to see the phlegm and bile and blood that he knew would be there. There were voices far away. There were voices getting nearer. And the one that he needed to hear the most ringing clear and true through the panic, making him realise that he didn't care how he felt, he didn't care how he looked. He should never have tried to hide this from John in the first place. Opening his eyes at last he looked for him, found him, found the reserves that his body had kept hidden from his mind. He had so much to say, so much to tell, and so little time to do it in. 


	6. Chapter 6

"You're back!" Abigail rushed forward, hands outstretched before bringing herself up short, pulling herself back into her own space. "What's wrong? I thought... well... I don't..." Sadie knew what she'd thought. She'd have thought the same thing herself. Abandoned. John would be like an anchor to Abigail and Jack the way he was at the moment. He was too tethered to his old loyalty, despite what had happened. Abigail was a hell of a woman, one of the finest she had ever known. But even she would not be able to drag John and Jack both faster than John would allow. There was nothing for it but to rely on Sadie's help until John was able to start thinking straight again. 

"Where's John?" Sadie asked. 

"Here," John said, from the corner of the room. Sadie hadn't even seen him there, dark, hidden behind his hair, behind his hat.

"And where's Jack?"

"In bed," Abigail said. "Look, what's going on..."

"I found Arthur, or more like Arthur found me," The information dropped like a stone, the ripples of it touching Abigail first who buckled slightly at the knees, bent with the weight of it. Then they touched John, John who simply flailed at the news. "I got him back but we need to get him inside, you both gotta help me carry him. Jack shouldn't see him like this."

Between trying to put a hat on that was already on his head and stumbling across the room like he'd had too much to drink, John pushed past them all and out into the night, falling to his knees as soon as he saw Arthur, crawling the rest of the way to his side, saying his name over and over.

Sadie watched as he crawled, watched Abigail hunch over behind him to help him up a little as they reached Arthur. She moved to help them when they got to him and she thought that the penny hadn't so much as dropped for her but rolled ever so slowly down hill, toppling to one side at the bottom. Of _course_ Arthur breathed John's name out like it was a prayer. Of _course_ John crawled to him on his knees like he was the altar at the end of a pilgrimage. 

Between them they hauled Arthur gracelessly into the cabin that they'd holed up in, through the cramped living space and into the only real bedroom they had. A single bed, a hard backed chair, a tiny table. And now Arthur. Sadie backed out of the room, let John and Abigail take over, they who knew Arthur best. John who knew Arthur best of all. 

Walking out into the living area she cracked open the door to what would have been a pantry once. Devoid of any food, most of the shelves fallen to the floor and eaten through by wood worm, it served as a room for Jack who was curled up on a bed roll on the floor, sleeping through the storm that was Arthur's return in the way that only a child can. Satisfied by that at least, she took up a seat in the living area and picked through the belongings on the small side table until her hand found the shape of a whiskey bottle. Holding it up in the next to useless light cast from the lamp she could see it was almost empty. But for the first time in a long time and felt that she needed it. Had earned it. She'd not taken to the bottle when she'd lost Jake. She'd faced her grief in full focus. She'd not indulged when the gang had, preferring to stay sharp and quick. But tonight she felt paper thin, strung out. The tang of the liquor on her tongue brought her back to herself just enough to be the right side of wrong. 

She stayed where she was when Abigail came back into the room, a bundle of old clothes held tentatively out in front of her. 

"Burn them," Sadie said quietly. Abigail sighed and hesitated then crossed the small space and dropped then into the barely smouldering hearth. The heat took eventually, winning out against the sweat and blood and vomit. "You need to wash your hands Abigail."

"Hmm?" Abigail looked at her from by the growing fire. 

"Don't do anything until you've washed your hands is all." She turned the whiskey bottle around in her hands and heard Abigail going outside, presumably to draw water and wash her hands like she'd told her to. When she came back in she brought a pail of water with her which she set to warm by the fire. Sadie watched her cover her face with her hands. 

"Sit Abigail," Sadie said. Abigail dropped her hands from her face and looked at Sadie. "It'll take a while yet," she said, nodding towards the pail. Sadie knew how she felt. The grief, tangled up with the need to just keep moving, just keep _going_ because if you stop then how the hell are you going get back up and going again. There was an air of reluctance then, as Abigail sat beside her. 

"I want to tell you something," Abigail said after a few moments of silence.

"Okay," 

"You won't... you wouldn't judge them would you?" Abigail asked, looking her in the eye then back to her lap. Sadie didn't need to ask who she meant. And she would never judge them. 

"No, no chance," she said. 

"Thing is, they've always been John and Arthur. Arthur and John. Y'know, John didn't even like me that much when I first joined them. I wanted something stable, something that was just _mine_." She paused and looked up again. "You're probably wondering why I didn't go for Arthur?"

"A little," Sadie said, a small smile on her lips. It was a fair enough question. John hardly screamed stability. 

"He nearly married once, Arthur. A girl name of Mary Linton. But his heart was never really in it. He tried so hard to convince himself that it was but it weren't. So when her family didn't approve he let himself get sulky about it but it was an act, even if he managed to convince himself. But he really only ever wanted John." She paused and twisted her fingers together, wringing her hands. 

"It wasn't like I stole John off him you know. Arthur let him come to me, and I knew all about them. He wanted John to have something more, something that folk would accept and that they would tolerate. I love him Sadie. I love him so much and he gave me my boy but he's had to _learn_ to love me and that ain't been easy on anyone. You know he left for a whole year? "

"Hard not to know," Sadie said. "It was plenty talked about."

"He totally panicked when Jack was born. Arthur was over the moon Sadie, but John? It was too much for him. John suddenly had all Arthur ever wanted for him and all John truly wanted was Arthur. So he upped and left without so much as a 'see you later'. Arthur was so angry with him. We all were but somehow he managed to be even angrier than I was. Too angry, even _I_ thought so and I was the abandoned wife. I don't know." She shook her head and stood, using her shawl to hold the heated handle of the pail.

"Like I said, it was already Arthur and John and I've always known that."

Sadie said nothing, just watched her knock quietly on the door and take the water in before coming back out and latching the door shut behind her. 

"I think I'll go bed down with Jack," Abigail said. "Night Sadie. And thank you for bringing him to John."

"Good night," Sadie said, leaving the bottle to one side and closing her eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the songs I listened to while writing this...
> 
> That's the way it is - Daniel Lanois  
> The scientist - Coldplay  
> Are you with me - Easton Corbin  
> Goodnight, travel well - The Killers

He hadn't taken his eyes off him. Not since the moment he'd heard his voice cut through the rest and he'd seen him fall to his knees to get to him. He looked and looked and couldn't look enough, choosing to save his energy to talk to him once they had him inside. It would have been embarrassing, being dragged around, vomit and phlegm and blood on himself, had it been in any other circumstances. But time was running through his fingers and the only thing that mattered in the world to him was John. He lay on the bed that they placed him on and kept watching John. 

"Need to get you out of those clothes Arthur," Abigail said. Arthur reached out to meet John's hand, his already being on its way to find Arthur's. Meeting in the middle and holding on. 

"I'll do it," John said. Abigail stood back and Sadie ducked out of the room, Arthur saw her go out the corner of his eye. John's hand stayed in contact with him the whole time, holding him, touching him, pressing down on him. 

_John had heard the conversation from inside his tent. Part of him wondered if she'd placed herself within ear shot for a reason._

 _"Arthur, can you take John somewhere?" Abigail asked. He thought he could hear her rubbing a hand against the gentle swell of her belly beneath her clothes._

_"Get him drunk you mean?" he heard Arthur ask._

_"Yeah something like that. He ain't doing so good. And..."_

_"You need him to do good. I know. I got it."_

_"You're good for him Arthur."_

_"Well ain't like he's much good for himself" He could've been offended by that, had it come from anyone but Arthur. But Arthur knew him better than he knew himself. And he was right._

_"That's not what I meant..."_

_"Ah I know what you meant Miss Roberts."_

_"Reckon we don't gotta say much more then,"_

_"Reckon you're right,"_

_John waited until they'd both moved away before he went and made himself easy to find, somewhere where Arthur wouldn't have to look too long to see him._

Abigail, respectful in the moment, had turned her back as John had pushed armfuls of Arthur's clothes at her. Arthur knew that in that little cabin that Sadie had brought him to were two of the best women. Looking up at John he hoped that they would be enough to see him through. 

"I'll bring you warm water Arthur," she said, eyes averted and looking the other way. 

"Thank you," he whispered, eyes ever regarding John.

"You're shivering," John said, kneeling next to the bedside. 

"No matter," said Arthur. "Best get clean before I spread anymore mess around." He broke off and wheezed a couple of breaths in and out. He felt John's fingers tighten against his own, a gesture he returned until they were clinging to one another in the near silence of the room, his troubled breathing sounding over loud. They waited in strung out silence, keenly aware of the passing of time and the need to do something, the need to say something. The sound of the door opening drew Johns gaze from Arthur and he suddenly thought that he might die right there and then if John didn't look back at him. It was with some effort that he allowed him to let go of his hand, to go and fetch the water off Abigal. 

"I'll latch the door," he heard Abigail say. "You need anything...or when...well either way. You just knock okay?" I'm not going to leave this cabin." As she squeezed Johns arm Arthur smiled for what felt like the first time in a long time. To see John being held up and suuported by her made him feel calmer than he thought he could be in that moment. Abigail would keep his John for him, would keep him well and safe. She would know what to do. Sadie would know what to do. He wouldn't have to be alone. He let a little bit more of himself slip gently away, comforted and reassured. 

"Let's get you looking smart Mr Morgan," John said, kneeling beside the bed and setting the pail down. Taking a handkerchief from a pocket he dipped it in the water and pressed it close to Arthurs hairline, moving it gently across his forehead and up a little into his hair. Stopping every few strokes to wring out the cloth and wet it anew, John applied his efforts to Arthur's face and neck with such care and devotion that Arthur was entirely unable to prevent a tear rolling down his cheek at that feel of it. A tear of sadness, of happiness, of peace, calm and comfort. John washed him and readied him as best he could with his one small handkerchief. He worked down both of Arthur's arms, taking care to clean each finger one at a time, placing his arms carefully by his side once he was done. He wiped down his chest and stomach, now so very different to the hardened muscle that it had been, sunken and wasted. Arthur was glad that John included his crotch in his cleaning, didn't want something so intimate and important to them to be left aside at that time. It felt important somehow to be acknowledged as a man. As John's man. The feel of warmth on his aching legs was nice but when John took each foot in turn he couldn't keep back the small sigh on pleasure. With a last press of the cloth to the sole of a foot, it left his skin and he heard it dropping into the pail of water, felt the cool of an unused blanket falling over him. 

_I don't know how to deal with this," John said to Arthur._

_"You don't deal with a kid John. You love a kid."_

_"I love you," John said, only a heartbeat away from stamping his foot in frustration and anger at a situation that had got well beyond his control, his capabilities. But Arthur was there and smiling at him, all fond and forgiving. "Never stop looking at me like that."_

_"Never will,"_

"You look tired John," he said, once John had finished tucking him in and seemed that he was comfortable. Arthur lifted his arms out of the confines of the blanket. John immediately took hold of his hand. 

"Yeah? You should see yourself."

"Don't make me laugh Marston, not unless you want one of my lungs in your lap." Arthur smiled at him. 

"Why is this so _hard_ Arthur? I never knew this could be so hard." His voice broke over the words and his grip on Arthur's hand tightened. Arthur lifted their joined hands and wiped gently at the tears on John's face. "Wish I didn't have to feel anything," he whispered.

"Me too," Arthur said. "I got some things I need to say to you boy." John bent deftly and pressed a long kiss to Arthur's heated forehead at that, at being called boy again. "Leaving you is making me hurt so damn much. It all hurts. Everything." John sat back and listened. "I had a son."

_"Why does this matter so much to you!? It's my life, it's my kid. If it even is my kid." John hated how petulant he sounded, hated how trapped he felt. Hated everything and everyone. Hated Arthur._

_"I want what's best for you,"_

_"And how would you know what's best for me?" He turned his back on Arthur and started to walk away._

_"Dammit John!" he heard Arthur calling behind him._

_"You can save your bullshit!" he called back over his shoulder. "I hate you!"_

"Think I was twenty four? Or there abouts. Met Eliza in a saloon. Eight months later we all rolled back through town and there she was, big as you like with my baby." He stopped to breathe, tried to let it roll over him, annoyed with how long it was taking for him to catch his breath. Desperate to tell John. In the space between his words, John had moved himself on to the small bed with him, had tucked himself up to his side to look at him. And selfish in his impending death he let him. "Used to visit them with money and toys every couple months. Stay a while. Loved that boy. Isaac. Few years of that and then one day I get there and all there is are a couple of graves. They'd been murdered." Arthur let John pull into him, let him feel the press of him against his body until he pulled away to look at him. 

"I had no idea," John whispered. 

"I've been such a fool," Arthur said. "Tried to push all this on you and Jack when you didn't even know the half of it."

"Why didn't you say?"

"Dutch," he paused again to breathe. All of his instincts were telling him to shut his eyes, to enjoy the peace. But he fought it, looked at John and kept looking. "Dutch took me into his tent that night and told me how it was going to be. Then he sent me away for a week. When I got back he kept me going back to his tent until I didn't know how to get by without him. He knew about us John. Got him all determined to pull me to him and push me from you. And he made it real hard. Such a fool. In the end I outgrew my use John. Stopped being dumb and started thinking for myself." 

"You hadn't started thinking for yourself I'd have swung for sure."

"All he ever wanted was yes. Just follow, don't think, don't ask. Turned out Micah could worship better than we ever could in the end. All them years counted for nothing compared to that rats worshipping."

_John knew he'd left it too long to go back but he was desperate. Needy. Had to see Arthur. And like a child looking for any kind of attention he didn't even care if Arthur only ever looked at him to frown or sneer. He'd take it. Because it meant Arthur was looking at him at all._

He offered no resistance when John pushed his lips to his own. He wasn't capable anymore. He couldn't have stopped himself anymore than he could hold back the tide. 

" I never hated you," John said. Arthur frowned at him. "Before I upped and left I told you I hated you but it's the worst lie I ever told."

Arthur felt a coldness around his chest. Like a fist, an icy fist holding on to his heart and squeezing. He knew, it struck him. He knew what that feeling meant. 

"I don't want to die John," he said suddenly. "I am a selfish man and I don't want to die. I want you, just you."

"You got me," John said, pushing into his space as much as he could. Arthur tried to move the blanket, grunting with the smallest effort until John noticed and helped him, pulling it back and crawling under it, wrapping them both up in it. 

"I feel cold," Arthur said, teeth chattering slightly as he spoke. "Do I feel cold to you?" 

"Hot as anything," John said, placing kisses across Arthur's cheeks. 

"I love you John."

"I love you."

He thought he might have yawned a little. He could hear John saying it over and over, a litany of 'I love you's' to send him away with. The words lodged in his throat, he couldn't say them back, they sounded stuck there rattling but not moving. Somehow he couldn't even cough them out and the cold around his chest was spreading out. But that was alright. Because John loved him and he loved John. And just his side, just the very edge of his left hand side where John lay, was still warm. 

_"Should we take it for the pot?" John asked, pointing at the stag where it stood unaware, eating the plants at its feet._

_"Look at it," Arthur said softly from behind him, his hands around John's waist, then whistled to get it's attention._

_John had never seen something so magnificent in his life. He covered Arthur's hands with his own. The stag looked at them. He twisted in Arthur's embrace and kissed him._

_"It's amazing," he said on to Arthur's mouth. When he looked back, the stag was gone._


End file.
